A Glitch For Mitch

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David Horsey had his snarkmeister cap on for this cartoon and column, and he wears that chapeau well.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will not be facing a challenge from actress Ashley Judd when he runs for reelection next year. Though he may be happy to have avoided the physical comparison -- she, after all, played Marilyn Monroe in a movie, while he looks like an ancient sea turtle dressed in a $1,000 suit -- the Kentucky Republican may miss having such an attractive target for his attack machine.

McConnell is not all that popular back home. Democrats, of course, can’t stand him and tea party Republicans may like him even less. To militants on the right, he is the quintessential Washington insider, dealmaker and compromiser. In January, a Louisville Courier-Journal poll found that only 34% of Kentucky Republicans would definitely vote for McConnell, no matter who his competitor might be.

McConnell is in the kind of political pickle that his Democratic counterpart, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, found himself in back in 2010. The Nevada senator lucked out by having a crazy-talking tea party goofball as his opponent and he eked out a victory. Judd would have been a more credible foe, but the McConnell team, backed by mountains of PAC money, could have made the election all about her, and thereby deflected the attention from him. ...

Republican Party officials are openly mocking the Democrats for their failure to come up with a candidate to run against McConnell, but they should not get too smug. Former President Bill Clinton has been urging another attractive brunette to enter the race. The young woman getting Clinton’s formidable charm assault is Alison Lundergan Grimes, who just happens to be a real politician. As Kentucky’s secretary of state, Grimes has run and won a statewide race.   [Emphasis added]

If the Tea Party throws up a primary challenger, McConnell will have to spend money early and fast.  If Grimes does throw her hat in the ring with Clinton's backing, she just might win.  I don't think she'll be a fire-brand liberal like Elizabeth Warren or Kirsten Gillibrand, but she would add to the Democratic numbers in the Senate.  That would help. 

It would also make me happy.  I need to put all this popcorn to use.